


In Between

by zeldadestry



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:52:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their friend is in love with his wife, but Dan senses no threat, only a strange security in this discovery’s rightness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



He’s not the jealous kind, but he doesn’t like strangers sitting so close to his wife. She’s friendly, trusting, but that could be any type of man, a bad one, beside her, and he just wants to make sure she’s safe.

“I’m Dan Evans,” he says, soon as he reaches the bench.

“Name’s Ben.” He tilts his black hat up, looks Dan over, a small smile on his face that makes Dan curl his hands into fists, sure there’s an insult in there, somehow. “I’m an artist, and I was just telling your wife that she’s an inspiration.”

“He’ll paint my portrait, for free, if we’d like.” Alice is blushing and Dan knows he’s going to say yes, even though he reckons this means trouble.

“I’ll paint the both of you,” Ben says, smile turning into a smirk and eyes fixed on Dan in a way that makes him nervous. 

  


They spend a lot of time talking, in the early evenings, after Dan returns home and while Ben works, sketching them first, and then finally beginning to apply paint to the canvas. Ben’s traveled all over the country, hell, the continent, and he’s a storyteller, knows just when to pause, at the height of a tale, and when Dan looks at him, waiting for the rest, he’ll be grinning back and Dan knows that they all recognize the game here, the wonder over what’s real and what’s make believe. 

Ben asks them questions without hesitation, even about Dan’s leg or whether or not they ever had any children, inquiries that would be rude, downright insulting, from other people, but, somehow, when they’re already there, in front of him, so that he can take their measure, if only for the portrait, still, it seems inevitable to let him see whatever he wants of them, the sorrows of their past, their hopes for the future. And every time they reveal a secret, sometimes even ones they’ve never told each other, Ben seems to recognize the importance, and says, thank you.

“It’s not just how something, someone, looks, that I’m trying to capture,” he explains to them, one evening when Alice serves them tea in their small, modest sitting room. “There should be a story in the painting, one that a viewer who’s never even met you can guess at.”

“And that’s why you badger us with interrogations,” Dan says. 

Ben takes a gulp of his tea without flinching, though it’s so hot that Dan’s waiting for his own to cool. “You don’t wanna answer, then don’t answer,” he says. “I’d think a grown man like you would know that.” 

Alice smiles, leans over to nuzzle across Dan’s heated cheek with her lips. “Dan doth protest too much,” she teases. 

“Proverbs, 3:17,” Ben says. “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” 

He’s obviously talking about Alice, but his eyes are fixed on Dan, as though expecting confirmation. Dan nods, conceding, and wraps an arm around Alice’s shoulders. Their friend is in love with his wife, but he senses no threat, only a strange security in this discovery’s rightness. 

  


He won’t take money, outright refuses it, so Alice says, after the portrait is finally finished and hanging in its place of honor, “You must keep coming over for Sunday dinner. It’s the least we can do to say thank you.”

“I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s no trouble,” Alice insists. “I can cook for three as easily as for two.”

Ben’s at the door already, his hat in his hands. “I don’t want to inflict my company on you any more than I already have.”

“We enjoy your company,” Dan says, and, although it’s true, he somehow feels it’s improper to say so. Still, that misgiving doesn’t stop him from taking hold of Ben’s upper arm and leading him to their table.

  


Fall is passing quickly, many trees already bare, when Ben tells them, “I’ll probably be moving on soon. I never meant to stay in New England for so long.” 

Dan frowns. “Then why did you?”

Ben looks down into his mug of ale. “I couldn’t refuse two ready-made muses,” he says, and laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t think I haven’t fallen into this trap before.”

“I would like to think we’re a pleasant indulgence,” Alice says, and Ben winks at her. 

Dan wonders if it’s possible, what the two of them seem to be saying, that Ben altered his plans because of the Evans, that somehow they were enough to hold him back, rein him in, Ben who seems so determined to do whatever he’s set out to do. 

“So you’re leaving,” Dan says, pushing away from the table. It shouldn’t bother him as much as it does and he hates that his voice was rough when he spoke. 

  


Another Sunday night, a few weeks later, and the light snowfall that began as Ben arrived on their doorstep has now become a storm.

“The spare room,” Alice says. “I refuse to send you back out into weather like this.”

Ben puts up token protests, but Alice meets each one easily, while Dan watches them from his spot beside the fire.

They walk upstairs, the three of them, bodies pressed close in the narrow hallway. Their bedroom is first, and Alice pauses before its open door. She’s between them, she’s holding Dan’s hand, Ben’s hand, she’s holding both their hands. Ben turns towards Dan, still touching Alice, and reaches up to rest his palm against Dan’s face. Ben has completed the circle, they’re all connected, now, and there’s a question he’s asking but Dan doesn’t know how to answer it. He doesn’t know anything, even when Ben’s lips brush against his own, even when their mouths meet.

When Ben pulls away, he and Alice glance at each other, as if already in agreement, than stare back at Dan, as though he holds the power to grant whatever it is they’re both asking for.

“Maybe we should-” Alice whispers.

“The three of us,” Ben continues, “together.”

“I don’t understand,” Dan says, although he does. He should feel disgusted, and he realizes that it must be a sin, but all he can see is how much they want him, how much they want each other, and he can’t deny how he feels, that he wants both of them, loves them both in return. 

  


There’s work to be done, on the days when Dan doesn’t go in to the store. There’s a garden he’s planted for Alice, practical, yes, in the backyard, filled with vegetables and fruit, but also, simply for their beauty, they grow flowers in front of their home.

When he goes back inside, he stops by the window Ben stands in front of, to see what he has sketched. “You always make me look bigger than I am, too big for the scene,” Dan says.

“Then I guess that’s how I see you,” Ben answers. He turns around and takes Dan’s hands into his own. 

Dan’s hands are streaked with mud, Ben’s smudged with charcoal, and it seems that somehow they match, fit. Still, he has questions, one in particular that has long disturbed him. “You know, when we first met, you told us your family’s name was Benjamin, same as your given name. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Ben shakes his head, squeezes Dan’s hands in his own before letting go. “I wish you wouldn’t have asked me that.”

“Why?”

“I’m not going to lie to you again. And I think you already suspect the answer. My family’s name is Wade.”

Dan takes a quick step back, instinctively wishing for the gun he has not carried since the war. “You’re-”

Ben holds up both his empty hands. “Don’t worry, Dan. I carry the same name, and I was that man, but I’m not- I buried that life, you understand me?”

“You’re an outlaw. A criminal. Notorious.”

“I was. I don’t deny it and I’ll answer any questions you have, long as you promise to let me have my whole say.” He moves in, again, as though he could so easily regain the easy familiarity between them. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you.” He frowns. “But I ain’t changed that much. I’d kill anyone who did try to hurt you or yours. You understand me? I’ll turn my own cheek, sure, and take as many blows as they give me, but I’d shoot a man soon as he raised his hand at you.” 

“And that would still be a wrong, no matter the reason.”

“If you say it is, then I believe you. You’re a good man. Can’t explain it, but I feel bound to you. Whatever I am, be sure that I’m yours.”

Dan swallows. “I know I shouldn’t like to hear that.”

“But you do?”

“God,” he’s going to say spare me, but he stops himself, senses his real answer, underneath, “damn me, yes.”

“I’ve known damnation, Dan, and you could never be a part of it.” He rests his hands at Dan’s waist, and Dan takes his shoulders, and they stand like that, holding each other still, until they hear Alice’s voice calling.


End file.
